Since the dawn of time, game players could be categorized as one of two things -- winners or losers. If you perform well, you win a game. If you don’t, you lose. It’s as simple as that. Lately, however, we’ve seen a paradigm shift; now we are seeing games you can’t lose. Or, more accurately, games that don’t have any clear, defined "losing" state. We’re used to the tried-and-true "game over" screen, but what if you can’t get a game over? Would it still be a game?
 
I’d argue that a game, by definition, requires a goal. A goal, however, intrinsically creates a sense of failure when one falls short of it. All games create a sense of satisfaction and frustration based on how close you come to achieving said goals, and thus, all games can be lost. So do we really need game designers to dictate this to us?

It’s the Rapture...

One of the first games to utilize this concept of not being able to "lose" was Bioshock. When you’d run out of health, death would not come for you. Instead, you’d be resurrected a few rooms away at the nearest "vita-chamber" with a smattering of health restored and be set on your merry way to continue the fight. This simple, intuitive device created a lot of controversy in the gaming world. Cynics cried that it defeated all semblance of challenge from the game. That you could play through the entirety of the game on the hardest difficulty setting, using nothing but a wrench, and still be able to complete the game.

However, I’d argue that that would be missing the point entirely. You don’t want to die in Bioshock because dying, quite simply, isn’t fun. Maybe it’s because you’ll have to backtrack an extra 10 seconds to get to where you were. A minor inconvenience, but an inconvenience nonetheless. Maybe it’s because you’ve created an arbitrary goal for yourself, say to kill a Big Daddy without dying. Or maybe it’s because dying makes you feel bad about yourself. You’d be letting yourself down knowing you just aren’t good enough to get past a specific part. Any way you slice it, there is a way to lose in Bioshock. Just none prescribed by the game designers.

My favorite thing about this is that it keeps you in the game at all times. You’ll never have to face a load screen, for example. In most games, when you die and reload, you’ll have to keep repeating that same preordained sequences for the umpteenth time. You’ll remember that this one enemy pops out from behind that barrel on the left end of the hall, then this other enemy will come charging from the right. You’ll repeat the same actions ad infinitum until you get to the part that’s troubling you. In Bioshock, even after dying, you’ll stay in the game and every single moment will be a new experience. In this regard, not being able to die creates less of a Groundhog’s Day-like experience than being able to die and repeat the same steps again and again.

There are drawbacks to this, however. Namely that you cannot retry a challenge that you’ve failed. Actually, you can, by manually saving and reloading. But let’s be honest, that’s a bit of a pain in the ass. I do feel like the game could give you a few more options for how severe the punishment for dying should be. I would suggest making it so on Hard mode enemies would regenerate some, if not all, of their health upon your demise. That way you could get another stab at your challenge while still keeping things fresh. By making it optional, it wouldn’t alienate beginners who may lack the manual dexterity for this sort of thing, yet still provide a challenge for the "hardcore" gamer.